[MD] Dawkins quotes RMP on religion.

[David M]

> Ron:
> no room for any argument there. I guess I was saying that getting
> caught up in possibility/probability is indulging in memory/projection
> function rather than any sort of objective Quantitative science.
> But hey, who am I? a loose field of convergent patterns.
> (I put that on my 1044)


DM: You know the whole confusion kicks off with using the wave metaphor
and equations to understand processes, waves of what? What is changing?
Turns out to be probability, and where is that located? Tricky. Potential
means something non-manifest that can be manifested, that gives physicalism
a great conceptual brain strain. Probability equations are pretty real and 
objective
but you have to measure their predicted presence and absence by working 
backwards
into the un-manifested, i.e. the possible. The actual realises some of the 
possible
and forsakes the rest of the possible and leaves it as unactual yet still 
possible.
And what is the impossible, only the possible that never comes, but how long
is never? Will it never come? Maybe. Will Hilary be president? maybe, its 
possible,
is it impossible, who can say. Can George be president again, should be 
impossible,
but is it? Could we all float off into space, seem unlikely? Maybe, maybe 
something even
heavier might swing into our solar system? Do we live in an open cosmos? Is 
any thing
possible? Probably not. Probably each moment of history wipes out any chance
of certain future becoming actual. But at the big bang, what then? At the 
big bang were
all possible futures available? Some physicists seem to think so.This is a 
very real
and vast range of possibilities existing at a certain point, the starting 
point. But why not?
I mean it, any suggestions why not?

David M